


A Problem is Solved

by bmouse



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, FIx It, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 21:51:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3184439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Senju Tobirama has had it up to here with your isolationist clan bullshit. Seventy years after a crucial change in the zoning law you get an Uchiha of a different color.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Problem is Solved

Senju Tobirama, Nidiame Hokage of Konoha was secretly not a morning person. Perhaps that is why his aide saw him blink blearily at the scroll in his hands, cock his head and grumpily mutter '...what the fuck is this?!' 

“Is what, Hokage-sama?” asked his aide, diplomatically.

“No. No, Kasumi-kun - just listen to this shit:” His slumped posture improved and his voice picked up steam as he went on.

“ 'Approved Guidelines for Uchiha Brides:’   
black of hair and dark of eye  
no more than six _shaku_ in height,   
the length of the nose not to exceed three _sun_  
the line of the jaw to flow in a smooth pattern like a river stone..

And then it goes on for three more pages! They're trying to sneak this into this year's legal amendments. This! Next to the articles of desertion and the rank progression codex for Kami's sake!”

Flinging the offending scroll down he made an abortive motion for his pipe which Uzumaki Kasumi had helpfully sealed away some hours before to ensure his productivity. 

“It's a fucking embarrassment that's what, Konoha is a modern village! We’re not in the business of breeding people for looks like the daimiyo’s court. It’s shinobi we need - not porcelain dolls. Do we tell the Inuzuka what their dogs should look like? Hell no! The only thing that matters is the strength of their bite. This is getting completely out of hand." 

"Well the Uchiha are...”

“Special? Bullshit. They’re one of several clans and my brother’s pining for their patriarch does not entitle them to preferential treatment. They don't need silence like the Hyuuga, space like the Inuzuka or Aburame, they have no animal husbandry like the Nara, but what they do have is some ass-backwards hardon for medieval social policy and frankly I'm not having with it." 

After this pronouncement he said nothing, staring stoically at his desk, his eyes seemingly tracing the grain of the wood. Tobirama never brooded exactly but when he was really concentrating on a problem his disregard for his surroundings was absolute. A full three minutes later he looked up at her as if nothing had happened and motioned her closer.

“Kasumi-kun, the zoning charts please.”

With a minute frown of concentration she traced a lie across her forearm, sealing characters flaring to life under her nail. Kasumi did not so much run the filing system as she was the filing system. With a small puff of air a wide scroll appeared between her palms. The Nidaime helped her roll it out across his desk. 

After examining it for a minute the frown-line between his eyebrows looked like it had been chiseled in.

“They're all in one place? With their own district? There's barely forty of them! Nii-san what were you thinking?! Where are we going to put the baths, the produce market, and the festival grounds? Half of their businesses would be better off by the gates anyway - it doesn't make sense. No, we need to re-consider this.”

"With all respect, Hokage-sama -” he smirked, well aware that she only said that when he was about to do something shocking. "- they won't take this lying down." 

“Politics is built on concessions, concessions on compromise.” Tobirama said evenly. Kasumi had a brief flash of undesrtanding. How it must have surprised his rivals, to hear something so reasonable coming from a man who looked like he had carved the red furrows in his cheeks himself and wore his armor to bed. 

"If the fire-breathers want to run the bulk of intra-village law enforcement they can’t isolate themselves from the rest of the population - ‘The good shepherd lies among the sheep.’ Approve construction of the central police station, approve the modified uniforms - kami knows the bastards love dressing up - give them a bit of pageantry to make the Hyuuga jealous. But misfile this nonsense. And if any of the other clans try to sneak in similar provisions dismiss them out of hand and say ‘not even the Uchiha's request could be granted.’”

“Honestly" he signed, rubbing the spot where his faceplate dug into his temples. "I'm just trying to get us out of the ninth century, Kasumi-kun." 

Maybe it would help if you stopped wearing fur all year round, boss she thought wryly. For all his talk of modernity it was amazingly difficult to get him into formal haori for council meetings.

“Redistribute them. Civilian quarter, merchant quarter, anywhere but their own pet mini-village. Heaven knows it will be easier to keep an eye on them.”

====================================

SEVERAL GENERATIONS LATER:

As they were walking out of class Ino threw an arm around Sakura’s shoulders and squealed. 

“And next year we'll be in the same homeroom as Sasuke-kun! I'm going to have him all to myself…

Sakura shrugged. As long as he wouldn’t foolishly try to challenge her for the top academic bracket, she thought. Ino blissfully went on prattling but at least they were going to the new hairpin store and soon she’d have reason to change the topic. She loved Ino she really did but she kept trying to drag Sakura into her boy-crazy phase but Sakura wasn’t having it. They had been best friends ever since the Yamanaka girl had declared herself her “rival in love!” and Sakura had momentarily broken her brain by saying she wasn’t interested.

Uchiha Sasuke was only Sakura’s third cousin and stranger things have happened (among the Hyuuga, certainly). But Mikoto-san had married (poached, to hear the rest of the Haruno family tell it) her mother's favorite half-brother and Sakura and Sasuke had been left in their own corner at all the family gatherings ever since they could crawl. Seeing a boy stuff caterpillars into his mouth at the age of three rather dented him as a romantic prospect. 

Not that he didn’t have his good points. He was serious and didn’t think it was weird that she wanted to spend the morning of her eighth birthday at the library looking up jutsu. They had both been bullied for a little while for similar reasons - socially-awkward, baby-faced, the unmanageable family hair. They got through it together too - a little more time at the library and a few weeks of scorching their cheeks at the lake training had put an end to the teasing.

If they ended up in the same graduating class maybe they’d end up on the same genin team. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. He had good chakra control too - almost as good as a girl and thanks to years of practice on a mother and brother who took dangerous missions he was also really good at first aid. Then again she heard the Academy tried to balance elemental affinities and while Sasuke’s katon jutsu was pretty impressive Sakura herself, thanks to an infusion of Uchiha blood somewhere earlier down the line, could spit out a series of white-hot adorably tiny but devastating fireballs. 

Twelve years ago Konoha had almost lost its fire. Since they were the law-enforcement arm of the village a lot of Uchiha had been supervising the evacuation and died during the Kyuubi attack but their numbers had recovered faster than many other families. They were matrilineal for one thing - anyone who married an Uchiha woman became an Uchiha, and the result was a little more eclectic than the careful homogeneity of the other clans. Still you could tell an Uchiha by the shape of their eyes, the fire affinity, the we’re-so-great-because-of-our-true-breeding-dojutsu attitude. But just to make it obvious they all had at least one of those white and red fan crests on every single piece of clothing they wore. 

Besides, she never told Ino this, but recently Sakura had started to think that she wanted to be like Itachi-san when she was older. Graceful, deadly but always smiling. Not to mention he could make those delicious bento that made Sasuke the envy of every lunch period - perfect riceballs, bunnies and crows made out of sweet egg and nori. 

Then again she probably had to get in line there. Among his other accomplishments Itachi-san had cemented himself a place as the hero of a whole new generation of Haruno shinobi by proving that you could be a scary genius ANBU captain even if you were born with candy-pink hair.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my IRL friend Zazz again. Aww Naruto... I'm so nostalgic about you being over. I think the way people play with canon is more interesting than canon IMHO. I had fun researching ancient Japanese measurements for this fic.


End file.
